


My Beloved Atropos

by arachnistar



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, F/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnistar/pseuds/arachnistar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Rose sees the threads, they’re in the heart of a little girl who will die at 22. Bad Wolf fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Beloved Atropos

The mission is simple: neutralize the threat. Rose will offer them a chance because that’s what she does ( _what he does_ ), but she’s ready to signal the rest of her team to close in if they don’t take it. They almost never do.

They, in this particular case, are the Moraria. They are slight in stature with bright blue skin and large, wrinkled heads disproportionate to their bodies, here to take Earth’s resources for their growing empire. Their leader, the wrinkliest of them all, stands in front. The opal at his throat bobs up and down when he speaks. 

“And why would we surrender to such a primitive species?”

“Because your ship’s surrounded by over a dozen of our best operatives. You can leave with your lives or we kill you all. ‘S your choice.”

A slow smile spreads across his face. “You think you’re so clever.”

She doesn’t even have time for a witty retort before she falls back screaming. A force, _it’s him, his mind_ , _shoving into hers_ , is pushing at her from every angle. She tries to throw up walls, but he sweeps in like a flood breaking all her barriers down. All she can feel is him, his alien presence everywhere, cloying and suffocating, thick like too much perfume. Everything that makes Rose herself is compressed as she draws further and further from the intruder. Soon there will be nowhere left to hide. She pushes back at him, but nothing happens. He is too strong, far too strong, and she is too weak here, growing weaker as she loses more and more ground.

 _No._  

Golden light fills her vision, fills her every crevasse and corner like a wildfire consuming everything. Like a star glowing bright, a supernova blasting out. It pushes back at him, out of her mind, and she spins into his, still pushing and pushing until everything that is him is gone, decimated and silent and so still.  

Her world goes dark as gunfire peppers the air.   

X-X-X

Everything is too dark and then instantly too light when her eyes open. Rose shuts them. Muffled voices talk over to the side and the smell of antiseptics fill her nostrils. Her body aches, her mind feels similarly heavy. 

She tries opening her eyes again, this time squinting at the harsh light that greets her. She blinks a few times and the room pulls into focus. Stark white walls with monitors, her parents, and an unfamiliar doctor by her side.

 “She’s awake! ‘m so glad you’re alright, love.” Jackie beams down at her for just a moment before the smile becomes a scowl. “What were you thinking, going in on your own? You could’ve been killed.”

“Jackie, sweets.” Pete cuts off her mum’s tirade. Rose could’ve handled it fine on her own, if her mind hadn’t felt like someone had poured molasses into it. “We should let her rest. You can read her the riot act later.”

Jackie’s scowl deepens and then she sighs and runs a hand through Rose’s hair. “Yeah, okay.”

Rose smiles at her and then at Pete, a silent thank-you.  Her attention shifts to the doctor. Her nametag identifies her as Dr. Jones. “What happened?” She can remember bits and pieces – offering the Moraria a chance to run away and their refusal – but after that, everything is fuzzy. Just golden light and pain and minds twisting.

“They’re a telepathic race.” Rose nods, remembers that bit from the briefing. “When they refused, their leader sent a psychic blast through your head. After that, the others came in and took care of them.” Dr. Jones gives her a warm smile. “You’ll be okay, just need some rest.”

“How much rest?”

“Three days.” At Rose’s widened eyes, Dr. Jones adds, “You took quite a hit, but brain scans indicate there’s no permanent damage. You’ll be fine.”

Rose nods. She doesn’t know it yet, but she will be nowhere close to fine.

X-X-X

The first time it’s a young girl at the park.

Rose sits in a swing, taking in the fresh air, her first exposure to it since her earlier release that day. Her head is pounding. Maybe she could’ve used another day in bed after all, but Rose is impatient to get back to work. Sitting around in bed all day leaves her with too little things to do and too many thoughts to fill the silence. The Doctor in another universe being the dominant thought, finding a way back to him, him with his empty fingers and heavy hearts. And here she is thinking about him again, instead of simply soaking in the sun like she intended.

A girl with brown braids sits down in the neighboring swing and begins pumping her legs. Another tendril of pain flows through her skull, curling into tight coils at her temples. Rose’s eyes shut.

Or maybe it’s the sun. She should move into the shade, see if that helps. 

“You okay, lady?”

Rose turns to the girl and it’s as if the entire world shifts. One second she’s looking at a little girl with braids and the next she’s watching this girl grow, hair lengthening and then shortening, eyes shadowing with the world’s injustice. Rose sees a fire burn inside this little girl, a young woman now, a desire to protect and aid those who need it. This girl will march in protests and wave banners and go out of her way to help. And one day, she will be walking home, twenty-two and confident with the spirit of youth and the illusion of immortality. It’s night and the bullet catches her in the stomach. She stutters and falls to the pavement. She doesn’t know how or why or really what; all she knows is a terrible pain in her belly. Rose watches, frozen, as the pain finally subsides and peace takes its hold.

“Lady?”

Rose blinks. The world has reasserted itself, the park in full flourish around her, the birds chirping, the sun shining, the little girl still, staring with concern at a stranger. Rose can still see the girl’s life mapped out in front of her. She can see those golden threads of life in her chest and she yearns to reach out. To pluck them and play them until this girl isn’t walking down a dangerous street too late at night.

One hand stretches out to the child. If she just reaches in, she can save this girl. She knows she can.

“Sarah!”

Rose blinks again as Sarah runs off to her mum, the moment broken. Her hand curls into a fist, which she lets drop to her side. She chews on her lip and tries not to think about the little girl who will be shot at 22 and what she could do to stop it.  

She can’t. She won’t.     

After that, Rose sees those golden threads everywhere. The bus driver. The woman who brings her files at work. The man who serves her coffee with a flirtatious wink and smile. Even the bartender, when she goes to drown her life in alcohol, only to leave after the horrifying vision that he will die in five days, his heart failing on him. It’s not everyone and not all the time, but the number of incidents are rapidly growing.

Rose makes up excuses not to see her family. Pete is the toughest because he works at Torchwood and can pop by her office any day. When she realizes that, she stops going and works from home. She avoids Mickey and Jake and her other friends like they’re the bloody plague and she’s the most susceptible person in the world. She knows she won’t be able to handle watching any of them die, that she’ll give in and rewrite their fates, and she can’t do that. Shouldn’t.

It’s not right.

Eventually Mickey swings by her flat. He knocks and knocks and knocks. She simply burrows further into her blankets. If she pretends he isn’t there, maybe he’ll go away.

“Rose! Rose! Open up!”  

She knows he won’t leave, but she wants to be optimistic for a change.

“I’ll break down the door! Don’t think I won’t. You’ll have to pay for damages.”

She curls into a tighter ball. He won’t, he won’t, he won’t –  

“One last warning; I’m coming in.”

She imagines him bracing himself, imagines the door breaking under his shoulder. He’s gotten stronger, Mickey has. He could do it. And if charging the door doesn’t work, he’ll figure out another way in. He won’t give him.  

Rose gets up and runs to the door, throwing it open before he can come charging in. Her eyes fall to the ground. If she doesn’t look at him, she won’t see anything.  

“Rose?” Mickey reaches out, but she steps out of his reach.

“’M fine.” It sounds like a lie even to her ears.

“You’re not. Rose, please.” Mickey’s voice softens. “You can tell me. I won’t tell Pete or Jackie if you don’t want me to, but someone needs to know.”

He moves again and this time she doesn’t move away. His arms wrap around her. If only they were castle walls strong enough to keep the beasts at bay. But they’re not and the beast is right there with them, lurking inside. This close, she can feel the warmth of his chest against her cheek. Her eyes stay shut; she’s afraid of what she’ll see if she opens them.

“What’s going on?”

Rose shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

But she does know. It’s Bad Wolf. She doesn’t remember the details of that first time, just blurry edges and fuzzy sounds, but she knows the truth deep within. Power like that doesn’t leave a body so easily. It can be dampened, cornered and caged, but not removed.

His cool hand brushes against her forehead. “Please. Just see a doctor. I’ll make the appointment, just please go see her. For me and your family.”

“Yeah, okay.”  

X-X-X

Dr. Jones pulls back to stare at the thermometer. “You’re burning up.”

Rose smirks, attempts a poor jab at humor. “I thought I was feeling hotter than usual.”

A small smile cracks on her doctor’s ( _not her Doctor though, no, he would know what to do but she can’t blame this doctor for not knowing – no one here knows_ ) face before she reasserts her professional mask. “No, this is serious. You’re running at 42 degrees. You should be dead. Or dying, not cracking jokes.”

Rose looks away. She knows how Dr. Jones will die. It won’t be in a hospital bed decades from now. Won’t even be a year from now. Not even a month.

She has thirteen days left. Soon she will leave on a field assignment for Torchwood where medics are desperately needed. In thirteen days, she will be hit by an energy blast while attempting to save one of her comrades. It’ll hit her head, sizzling the skin and popping her eyes and burning away half her brain. Rose tries to push the images from her mind and focus on the current predicament.   

“I’m not though.”

“No.”

Dr. Jones checks her heart-rate. Blood pressure. Reflexes. Vision. Peers into her mouth and ears and eyes as if they’ll reveal hidden secrets. Finally she pulls back and shakes her head. “Except your temperature, everything else looks normal.”

“Then I’m free to go?” Rose pushes down on the counter she’s seated on, ready to lift off and run. She needs to move, wants to feel wind slapping her face, concentrate on her own body.  

“Not yet. Something’s wrong.” Rose settles down with a sigh as Dr. Jones looks her over once more. “I’ll draw some blood and get it tested.”

As she readies the needle, Dr. Jones says, “Mickey didn’t say much about what’s going on with you. Why you left Torchwood. It’s connected to what’s going on here, isn’t it? Does it have anything to do with the Moraria attack?”

“I didn’t leave Torchwood. Not entirely.” Rose stares at the far wall, at the diagram of the human body. So many ways for a body to fall apart, so many places where it can just stop. She’s become so aware of them since all this started. Her eyes trace the curve of the skull. What a thin casing the skull is for the body’s most vital part, what a feeble defense. The rib cage is only marginally better, completely inefficient when it’s your own body fighting against you. “I just work from home now.”

She ignores the second part of Dr. Jones’ query. The Moraria are to blame for it returning, but they didn’t cause it. This is on her.  

“You need to give me more, Ms. Tyler.”

“Rose. Call me Rose.”  

Dr. Jones sighs. “Rose, tell me what’s going on. I can help.”

 _No, you can’t_.

“I don’t know.” At least it’s not a complete lie. Rose knows it has to do with the Vortex, with Bad Wolf and the heart of the TARDIS and the Moraria, but she doesn’t know anything else.  

“We’ll start with simple questions then. How do you feel? Feverish?” Rose shakes her head. “Cold? Any chills?” No and no. “Anything hurt?” Another shake because the only things that hurt can’t be fixed with medicine. “Are you seeing things?”

Rose’s body goes still before she answers. “No.”

“Tell me what you see.”

Dr. Jones is smarter, more observant, than Rose thought. She can’t help the smile; she’s seen the rest of this woman’s life play out and yet she barely knows her. It’s marvelous in a funny sorta way. 

But what can Rose say? She sees everything. She sees the lives of those around her and she sees their deaths. She sees those golden threads within each person – the spinning, the measuring, the cutting. Some of them are more complex – forking off in multiple directions that have yet to be decided, a variety of ways to go. Others are fixed, solid points in the time-stream that will come to pass. Whole trajectories plotted out and Rose with nothing to do but watch.

How can Rose even begin to explain that without winning herself a one-way trip to an asylum? Nobody here can help her. She wishes she could be away, back at home, her real home in another universe, with the man she loved. He could help or at least he’d understand. They’d figure it out together.  

“I can’t.” Rose stands. Before Dr. Jones can say anything else, Rose gives her a gentle smile, to thank her for the time.

The image of Dr. Jones thirteen days later overlays with the current reality, brain and skull mixed with brown skin and concerned eyes. Rose’s smile turns to horror.

“Trust me, I can help. But only if you let me.”

“No.”

Rose is transfixed by the macabre Dr. Jones blended with the living one in front of her. Gold catches her eye and she looks down at the threads dancing in the woman’s chest. The end if far too short for such a brilliant woman, for someone who should have so much more life to live. She deserves a good life, not a quick death in the aftermath of a battle. 

Rose stretches out a hand.

“But I can help you.”

Her hand rests above Martha’s heart. Rose seizes the golden threads and it’s like diving into Time. Whole galaxies spin by her, whole universes of possibilities and events all converging into one moment. Rose zeroes in on that moment, on the final few minutes of Martha Jones’ life.

A lonely field with yellowed grass scorched dark by an earlier battle. Dr. Jones kneels by a man, tending a burn on his shoulder. An alien, squat and green, wielding an energy blaster creeps closer. Lines up the shot. Rose focuses. Time is her ink and it will do her will. He crumbles to the ground.

It’s not enough and she squeezes the hearts of every other alien in the vicinity. They fall. Dr. Jones continues to treat her patient, unaware of the threat that hovered so close.

Rose draws back to watch as the short thread grows longer, new twists and turns added on, spiraling out to a bright future like a spiral galaxy unwinding its arms. Martha Jones will have a very successful career as a doctor, find love, have two children or maybe one, it’s her choice really but her death is far in the future now. 

The moment breaks.

“What are you?” Dr. Jones has stepped back and now watches her with wide eyes.

“’m – “

Rose catches a glimpse of herself in the reflective steel of the supply cabinet. Golden light shines from her eyes. It emanates from her whole body, free at last. The glow diminishes, backs down but not into the cage, as she realizes what she’s done, how she’s manipulated time and saved a condemned woman from her fate while massacring a score of invaders, dipped into the addictive power within her and let it run rampage. It feels right and wrong – she doesn’t know anymore.

She turns and runs.

“Rose!”

But Rose is already gone, out the door and through the halls. She whips past startled nurses and operatives. A siren goes off, but Rose is quick on her feet and oh so good at running, slipping out the building before she’s caught. She runs and runs until her feet are burning and her heart hammering in her chest. It feels good, to focus so heavily on her own life and not on the lives of others.       

She doesn’t go home. Mickey will be there waiting for her to ask how it went. She doesn’t know where to go, but it has to be away. Far away from anyone.

Rose buys the first zeppelin ticket out of London. It’s only once she’s safely aboard the zeppelin that she looks down at her ticket.

Bergen, Norway.

She’s not sure whether she should sob or laugh.

X-X-X

Rose waits five and a half hours at the beach. When the time is past, she laughs at herself for fanciful notions. This is her life now and no one will ride in to help her. She’s not sure she even wants that.

Maybe it’s better if the Doctor never learns what became of her. She’ll be a sad story to him, the tragic tale of his love’s separation, but also a hopeful one where she finds love again and lives a fantastic life in this universe, dying at a ripe old age after saving the world hundreds of times. He will never know that she killed dozens of aliens to save the life of one woman, that she bent time to accomplish that. There is joy in not knowing, in dreams and hopes and optimism. 

It wasn’t her; it was Bad Wolf but Bad Wolf is her and she’s to blame for not reeling the power in, for allowing it to go through all the aliens instead of just the one.

She should’ve stopped at just the one (or none at all).  

She wanted it like this. Not all of her, but some part. Some part of her wanted blood and pain and death.

And life. Life most of all. She chose life for one at the cost of others. What does that make her? A god? A powerful god doling out life and death with little concern for right and wrong? But she feels so human, vulnerable and scared and powerful all mixed up in one body. She doesn’t know what to do.  

Rose waits another two days before buying a gun from town. She retreats to the small seaside cabin she’s been using and presses the barrel to her head. She hasn’t stopped burning and the metal is cold against her skin. She trembles, isn’t sure she can do this.

_The dead all around her, icy fingers clawing at her, begging and crying for life. What does she do with all this power?_

The bullet rips through her skull and comes out the other end, spattering the wall with scarlet. It should be the end, but it’s not. 

Even with the pain lacing through her head, Rose stays awake. She lies in a pool of her own blood, fingers twitching, as skull and brain knit back together. Her mouth forms wordless screams because this _burns_. When it’s over, she sits up. There’s a dull ache where the bullet pierced her flesh, but other than that, nothing.

“Why?” She yells at the cabin. “Why can’t you just let me die?”

Nobody answers.

She is alone.  

She tries cyanide next and ends up retching for hours. Then drowning where she wakes up on the beach, her chest sore but very much rising and falling with every breath. Next electrocution where the energy burns through her, only to fade away. Even starving herself doesn’t work; her body grows lethargic but she keeps on moving. Everything hurts but nothing is permanent.    

She continues to burn. It is her one hope, that she will simply burn out like a star, fizzle into nothing, flesh reduced to ashes.  

To pass the time, she walks the beach, listening to the crash of waves, feeling the turn of the world beneath her feet, dreaming and imagining and making sculptures in the sand. She considers going back several times, but the thought terrifies her.

Here there are no people, no golden threads to tempt her power. There are just the gulls wheeling overhead and those lives she can ignore. Back home, there’s her mum and dad and Mickey and Tony and Jake. She cannot allow herself to see their deaths because she knows she’ll prevent it no matter the price. She will kill the driver or the shooter or the alien. She will burn everything else for them and she cannot be allowed to do that. She cannot fall that far. She has to be better.

When she sleeps, she dreams. The Doctor features in her dreams most nights.

Sometimes she pleads for his help, but he just shakes his head. _“I’m sorry, Rose. I’m so, so sorry.”_ She wants to beat him then, thump fists into his chest and beg for an end to everything. She needs actions, not apologies.

Other times she grabs him by the lapels and kisses him until they’re both breathless and panting against one another. His fingers dig into her skin and hers find purchase in his hair. Heat envelops them, not the kind that burns in her now but a different kind. A kind that leads to flesh pressed against flesh, murmured words, bodies slick against one another.

And in the darkest moments, she burns planets to save him, watches whole races dissipate into dust for him.

_“I want you safe, my Doctor.”_

_“I want you, my Doctor.”_   

X-X-X

Rose stays in limbo for weeks until, one day after a particularly vivid dream where she rescues the Doctor and he draws the power from her but doesn’t regenerate and they shag under a starry sky and it’s perfect and nobody dies, the air before her shimmers. She focuses on that spot, feels her own power tug. The air glimmers, turns golden with her energy. Through it, she can feel the wind of a different world, a different time, on her face. She steps through.

It’s not her London. It’s not even her Earth. But it is her universe. She can feel it in the air, in the depths of her heart.

The wide street she stands in is quiet. She sees a flash of the past, of the bustling marketplace this once was with vendors all around hawking their wares and customers pushing past, and then it’s gone. Smoke thickens the air and ashes cover the ground like snow.

Rose picks her way through until she finds someone. He is small and more feline than human in appearance although still bipedal. He crouches in the ashes, but jolts up at her approach, ears pressed back and spear thrust forward. The same golden threads she saw back home are present in his chest. She resists being drawn in to focus on his current threat. 

“’S okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” She raises her hands, wiggles her fingers.

The feline surveys her and eventually lowers the spear. “What are you doing here?”

“Jus’ traveling.”

She can’t resist any longer. The timeline pulls her in. His name is Marcalo and he used to sell fish in the market. Then the revolution came. He fought in the frontlines until they were crushed by the country’s ruler, just hours ago. He staggered here and will die of an infected arrow wound in his thigh. She pulls back. Marcalo is watching her with narrow eyes.

“Why here?”

Now she can see the way he favors his left leg, how the right side of his trousers are stained with blood. She points at the injury. “Let me help.”

“You’re not human. You smell of something else.”  

“Doesn’t matter what I am.” She doesn’t actually know if she can heal him, but she wants to so badly. More than that though, she wants to find this ruler and rip him to pieces like he deserves.

Rose blinks – where had that come from? She didn’t mean it, did she?

No, she decides. Whatever his crimes, she’ll give him a second chance, she will. Make him see justice in a different way, one that doesn’t end in death. And then… well, then she’ll decide.

“Can I trust you?”

“You don’t have many other options, do you?”

“Don’t suppose I do.” Marcalo drops to the ground, turning his leg so she can see where he was struck. He pulled the arrow out earlier, so now it’s just a bloody hole.  

Rose presses her fingers against the wound. Sometimes the power comes and does as she wishes without much conscious effort. When she healed herself, it required no thought. But here, she has no idea what to think.

She stares at the blood and thinks about it closing. Muscles melting together, skin stitching itself back up, blood clearing up. Nothing happens. She groans. 

“You a doctor?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well…” He sounds grimly amused. “If you see a big cat with a full mane and crown, can you do me a favor and kill him?”

“Hmm.” Rose will make no promises.

She _will_ give him a chance. She will not allow a repeat of Dr. Jones.

_Come on. Do this for me._

Rose prods and pokes at her own power, biting her lip as nothing continues to happen. The golden threads of Marcalo’s life tell her time is almost up, that this is his final hour. She tells them to screw themselves. He will not die. She won’t let him. She can save him and she doesn’t need to kill anyone to do it.

“You’re _not_ dying.”

Her eyes shine gold as the wound seals itself, skin melding into one whole, fur sprouting out to cover. The threads of his life shake and shift and change into something new. She doesn’t look closely at them, just smiles at Marcalo.

“Y-you saved me. You started glowing and saved me.” Marcalo murmurs, his voice tinged with awe. He looks upon her as if she’s a goddess and she almost expects him to lower his head in worship. Hopes he doesn’t. “You’ll save the rest of us now, won’t you?”

“I’ll try.”

Rose allows Marcalo to lead her to the palace where King Leorus lives. She will give him a chance despite Marcalo’s eager remarks about different ways he could die. They sneak into the palace and Marcalo points a paw.

“He’s in there.”

They enter a lavish throne room inlaid with gold designs and rich tapestries depicting his royal ancestors. At the end of the hall, a magnificent throne of gold and velvet stands. King Leorus sits in it. He is much larger than Marcalo and has a bushy mane threaded through with jewels. Gold adorns him just like it does the room, worn on his fingers and arms and neck, woven into his blue garments. He glitters and gleams.

She avoids looking at his center, at the tantalizing threads of life. She doesn’t need that type of distraction now.      

“What are you doing in my palace?” He snarls, amber eyes burning.

Rose steps forward. “’m giving you a choice.” She says at the same time Marcalo spits, “To kill you.” The two glance at each other.

“Guards, seize them!”

Ten guards surround them, armed to the teeth with swords and axes and drawn claws. Marcalo’s fur bristles; he brandishes his spear at their opponents. Rose rests a hand on his shoulder and shakes her head. He scowls but doesn’t move.  

She looks back at the king seated in his throne. “’m giving you a choice, Leorus. I – “

“I heard you the first time.” He interrupts and then looks over at Marcalo. “Seems like your friend disagrees.”

Rose opens her mouth to argue, to say that Marcalo was foolish or mistaken or rash and young, but the king waves a paw in the air. “He wants death; he’ll get it.”

“No!”

It’s too fast. The guard pulls his sword back, leaving Marcalo to fall to the floor. The red carpet turns dark from his blood.

Rose stares at his body in dismay. She had just saved him, just watched his timeline blossom with new possibilities, and now he was dead. She failed. Her body trembles.  

“Kill her too.”   

One of the guards drives a sword through her chest. It feels like fire and she screams a drawn-out howl of agony. Her knees wobble, but she doesn’t fall.

“Little more durable, are we? Stab her again.”

Another sword, maybe the same one, she can’t tell in-between the red pain, pierces her. Blood wells up in her throat; she coughs it out between sobs. Everything is burning and in that burning, she can see the king. Her vision focuses on him, the king in a sea of crimson. The blood on his paws, from Marcalo and from other revolutionaries, from high taxation and brutal laws, from greed and fear – that’s what all this red is, the red of the dead and the suffering, all on him.

Rose straightens, eyes hard and gold. The wounds on her torso are healing, stitching back up and sealing.

King Leorus stares back. His deep voice, when he speaks, trembles. “Who are you?”  

“I am Bad Wolf.” Rose stares right back. “I was going to give you a chance. But no more. Now I end you.”

She raises a hand, an arm, and concentrates on him. On the atoms that make him up, the unique conformation that makes King Leorus the one and only King Leorus. Her hand tightens and then relaxes. King Leorus becomes dust and nothing more.

The future of the planet lurches and Rose stumbles. The guards stare at her with wide eyes – in horror or awe or more likely some mixture of both. She stares at the place where the king once sat.

And then she steps out of this time, this place, and runs.

After that, the power is never still again. It bubbles in her veins and in most cases, she can exercise it with relative ease. Even in the worst of times, when her eyes lose their glow and she feels almost like a watcher again, she need only focus and draw deep within herself, think of love and loss and pain and fury to pull it out. 

Rose travels and never stays in one place for long. She saves worlds and ends them too. She whips up revolutions and commits genocide when it’s absolutely necessary ( _when they deserve it, when her blood rages within her and she can’t help it, she can do these awful things because she is Power and Time but only when it’s deserved, only when fury drowns out compassion_ ). She saves people when she can, pulling them away from disasters and healing impossible injuries and sometimes letting them go. Always it feels like something is eating her from the inside and sometimes she wonders if she’ll just burn up before she finds him again.

She doesn’t admit it out loud, of course, but that’s what she’s doing. Part of anyway. Looking for him, keeping an eye out for him, perking her ear for any snatch of news. Sometimes she hears of the Doctor’s exploits, but she is always a few years too late. She isn’t sure what she’d do if she found him, but her heart burns for him and she wants nothing more.

X-X-X

Rose had given up on ever returning to her old city; her portals seem to have a mind of their own, taking her to random places around the universe, generally places that could use some help from the Bad Wolf, often places that would burn because of Bad Wolf.  

And yet now she stands in London, right by the Thames and the London Eye. She draws her hood over her face and dampens her power. She avoids looking closely at the people on the street, but still manages to get inklings of their deaths as she passes by. Stroke. Overdose. Construction accident. She wishes she could prevent them all, but has long since learned that she can never save everyone.

Maybe she’ll get chips. The chippy she used to go to is close and it’s been ages since she had any. Her stomach rumbles and she smiles. For the first time in a long time, she feels ordinary, just another person walking down the street, no blood on her hands.  

Then she bumps into him.

She’s about to push past and mumble an apology – she doesn’t see it’s him, not right away – and he’s about to do the same when they both freeze. Her eyes trail along his body, his familiar coat and his unfamiliar suit ( _blue? it’s good on him_ _but she misses the brown a bit_ ), his warm brown eyes, his really great hair sticking up.

“Rose?” He stares at her, wide eyes as if she’s a ghost, and then his face breaks out into a large smile, the kind of smile that feels like sunshine and rainbows.

“Doctor.”   

His arms wrap around her, pulling her close. She buries her face into his chest, listens to the beat of his hearts, and breathes in. He still smells like spices, like something exotic and alien and wonderful.

Does she still smell the same?

Much as she wants to not look, her eyes are drawn to the golden threads in his chest. They’re a complicated mass of tangles, worse than the worst case of bed-hair she’s ever battled. There are too many to pick apart and travel on with a mere glance and she’s glad for it. She doesn’t want to know how he’ll die, isn’t sure how he’ll feel about her plucking and pulling those threads into a new shape if she were to attempt anything.

Suddenly everything that’s happened since they separated comes crashing down on her. All the worlds with all the aliens she slaughtered, all the timelines she played like harps, all the events she prevented or caused because she couldn’t keep from interfering. And the ever-present burn in her head, as if she swallowed a star and now it’s slowly burning away everything that is Rose Tyler. She chokes on a sob.  

He pulls back, arms running up her sides to rest on her shoulders. “Rose, what’s wrong?”

Even as she tries to duck her head, hide the truth a moment longer so as not to ruin their happy reunion, he puts a hand on her chin and brings her face up to his.

The Doctor peers into her eyes. He’ll see the golden light in them – no matter how much she damps the power down nowadays, it’s always peeking out from the depths. And there’s no way he’ll miss that her skin burns hotter than any human’s should. He’s smart and he’ll notice, her Doctor.

“Bad Wolf.” He concludes, lines tight. “How?” 

“Telepathic blast from a Moraria. It awakened somethin’ inside.”

“I pulled it all out.”

She gives him a gentle smile. How it must sting to know that he failed, that he didn’t save her as completely as he’d believed. “Must’ve missed something.”

The lines of his face tighten. “How long?”

“I don’t know.” She’s lost count of the days, the weeks, the months, the years. “A long time, before I came over here.”

“And how do you feel?” One of his hands has moved to her neck where he presses them against her pulse. It’s faster than usual under his fingers, but that’ll be because of him, not the power coursing through her veins.  

“’M not dead.” Rose shrugs. “Can’t die actually. Gunshot, drowning, electrocution, nothin’ worked.”

His mouth pulls into a frown. She realizes what she’s said and instantly looks away. Her eyes fall on a young man walking his dog ( _fresh from college, living on his own in a small flat, he has a date tomorrow night, a house fire will claim them both – the dog trapped in a room, the man’s lungs blackened by too much smoke even as his skin burns and it’s pure agony so much pain_ ) until the Doctor’s shaking jolts her from the vision.

“Rose.”

She looks back at him. His eyes are soft with concern, his mouth set in a thin line.

“I see them.” She nods at the man, being cautious not to let the timelines tug her into his life again. She returns her gaze to the Doctor who is safe and steady. “How their lives will go an’ how they’ll end too. I can stop ‘em, if I want, change ‘em to something else.”

Her eyes burn with tears. She’s been alone so long with no one to explain it to and now she has him again, she has her Doctor back. She can be vulnerable and open and say everything, but she’s shaking. What if he pulls away? What if this is all too much for him, too much effort? Or what if it’s too much blood, too many stains and cracks on his companion? She’s not who she once was, hasn’t been that her for a long time now. What if he leaves her?

He lifts a hand to her face, runs a thumb across her wet cheek. She leans into the touch and looks into brown eyes brimming with warmth and concern.  

“I’ll figure this out, Rose. We’ll find a way to stop it.”

She’s not so sure if she wants to stop it entirely – it feels ingrained in her body, it’s a part of her like her arms or kidneys or eyes, even deeper than that, her soul burning bright, it’s who she is now as awful as that can be – but she nods anyway. Because it’s her Doctor and because maybe it would be better to relinquish this power, lose this part of herself that can be horrible and cruel even as it’s helpful and kind.

The Doctor beams and takes her hand. Whatever things have happened, their hands still fit together perfectly, fingers interlocking as if they belong like that.

Perhaps it’s a sign that everything will be okay in the end. She has to believe that, that they’ll be okay whatever happens. Wants to believe it more than anything. But she knows real stories rarely end well, that the monsters aren’t always tangible, love doesn’t conquer all, and death is so very present, but she’ll fight for this, for them, and maybe it’ll be enough.   


End file.
